Axl Rose Not World’s Greatest Singer

May 21, 2014

A recent Concert Hotels infographic concerning the vocal ranges of popular singers confused some into reading that Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose has been deemed the greatest vocalist of all time. What the chart, entitled “The Vocal Ranges of the World’s Greatest Singers,” conveyed was that Axl does indeed have a large vocal range, but does not declare him as the finest singer.

The singers on the chart can be sorted by vocal range, highest notes and lowest notes, and Rose is followed by Mariah Carey and Prince in the range department. Mariah Carey, Christina Aquilera and Prince beat out Rose in the highest notes field, though Rose can hit the lowest notes, ahead of Barry White and David Bowie.

Several news outlets, including USA Today, initially misread the chart, and assumed Axl Rose had been deemed God of all pop singers.

Axl Rose is a high genius, and once customized his own pair of Converse hi-top sneakers:

Concert Hotels sourced a Rolling Stone list of the “100 Greatest Singers of All Time” while compiling their chart, which includes Kurt Cobain, Eminem (?), Roy Orbison and Miley Cyrus –

“To create this piece, we took the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time as compiled by Rolling Stone magazine in 2008. To this list, we added some of today’s top singers including the nominees for top male and female artist at the Billboard Music Awards 2014. We cross-referenced the resulting list with vocal range data curated by The Range Place. We included all of the singers on the list for whom the data was readily available.”

While Rose has indeed been deemed one of the greatest singers, outraged readers took to Twitter to vent their dismay over the assumption that Axl is the all-around king:

Axl Rose has been ranked as the "Greatest Vocalist Ever" … according to mating cats